Not a single person seem to think that it is odd that we can simply order a foreign company to sell their business to an American company.
The US has the right to ban companies from the country (as do other countries). What the US is saying is that the parent company (Bytedance) bust divest Tik Tok or they'll lose access to the US market. Microsoft is interested in it, but it could be a different company buying it. This is different than "you must sell this company to this other company" because the US can't force a foreign entity to do that (as long as that foreign government doesn't also cooperate due to politics of soft power reasons). In the case of China, Bytedance can absolutely refuse to sell Tik Tok, it'll just get banned from operating in the United States. Surely they'd rather take a few billion dollars instead, which is why they are going to sell it.
Actions like this or ones that are similar in spirit happen quite often. And naturally if you look at China, well, frankly, they are getting a taste of their own medicine in some sense.
https://time.com/5874408/trump-order-bytedance-sell-tiktok-u...
"That order marked the sixth time a U.S. president has either blocked a deal or ordered a corporate selloff since Congress authorized the power to intervene in 1988."
WSJ - https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-to-sign-order-demanding-c...
I don't know the details of the others, but one that comes to mind (and maybe is mentioned in the article?) is the blocked acquisition of Qualcomm by Broadcom.
-edit-
The circumstances around some of these may not be exactly the same, but the derivation of power comes from the same source.
Also who cares about the WTO? I don't see the WTO being involved when China forces majority-owned joint ventures or outright bans US companies from operating there. Why would a court be involved either? Bytedance is welcome to sue, I suppose, but Trump (in this case) has the power to issue this order. I guess if we don't like that since it's being used now, we should have Congress vote to take that power away from the current and future presidents.
I'm in favor of this move overall. Besides the toxicity of social networking in general, I just don't see a point in letting Chinese technology companies operate in the US unless it's strictly under favorable terms for us. If they don't like it, then I guess maybe they should let US companies operate freely in their country. This will increasingly end up happening and I say good. China will grow tech companies, and the US will force them to divest or not operate in the US once there is significant money at stake until China plays fair. If they don't want to, well, that's just no big deal. We're doing just fine.
Did you check? https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds549_e...
It also doesn’t have anything to do with the banning of US companies.
Discussions in the West tend to completely ignore these changes. For example, joint venture requirements have been removed from most sectors of the economy. Or to give another example, an entire legal system to protect and enforce IP has been set up in the last two decades or so, and that system is now very heavily used (including by foreign companies).
Worse, it cold be put into entity list, permanently removed from app store and play store.
How is that not extortion ?
edit: spelling
Yes, the US government is mulling over the idea of banning TikTok but that is only one of the problems. The immediate problem is that US companies have seriously assessed the security risk. TikTok and China have a credibility problem in the business world.
TikTok shareholders sees the same risk and they want to protect their investment. Not odd or surprising.
Are you referring to something specific or this is a Bush doctrine sort of thing?
Foreign companies are free to not do business with the United States if they feel their company is likely to be expropriated. In practice 300m of the world's richest consumers make the US irresistible. Thus, OFAC is tolerated.
The thing that is notable is that the US has traditionally advocated for open markets and cross border ownership, but now is jumping on board with tactics it once campaigned against.
If TikTok wants the American/European market and they’d sell the company in order to so, that’s just the reality of working within the current geopolitical landscape.
Indeed. The real equivalent would be when China prohibited AWS from operating datacenters in China, forcing them to instead operate out of Chinese-owned datacenters.
To make it as illustrative as possible, your example is like the child of an American goes to work in China and China says, if you want to work, you need to use my shovel.
My example is like the child of a Chinese goes to work in America and America says you need to be adopted.